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Improving farmers markets and challenging neoliberalism in Argentina

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  • Isaac Sohn Leslie

    (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Abstract

Although typically invisible, neoliberal policies and ideologies are often at the root of why farmers markets struggle to offer affordable prices for consumers, sufficient income for farmers, and expand socially and environmentally sustainable food systems. Argentinian ferias francas, a variation on farmers markets, offer a unique case to examine how they may be designed to alleviate these issues by challenging neoliberalism through legislative mechanisms. Ferias francas emerged as an explicitly anti-neoliberal, grassroots response to Argentina’s expansion of neoliberal agricultural policies that stimulated global agribusiness and displaced small-scale farmers. Organizers partnered with municipal, provincial, and national governments to develop legislation to support small-scale farmers and to make the network of ferias competitive with global agribusiness. I ask, how can organizers expand farmers markets’ potential to fulfill the social and environmental goals of agri-food movements, given neoliberal capitalism’s constraints and contradictions? I analyze feria legislation by situating it in its social and historical context, and comparing legislative mechanisms to core elements of neoliberalism in the economy and in the everyday mentalities of agri-food activists. I find that mechanisms such as setting prices lower than neighboring supermarkets and establishing uniform prices for feria goods contest some aspects of neoliberalism. However, the ferias also reproduce neoliberalism, and are still subject to the price standards set under the global neoliberal agroeconomy, raising questions about their prospects for sustainability under neoliberal capitalism. This analysis of feria legislation makes neoliberalism’s influence on farmers markets visible and highlights legislative mechanisms that address some of its harmful effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Isaac Sohn Leslie, 2017. "Improving farmers markets and challenging neoliberalism in Argentina," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 34(3), pages 729-742, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:agrhuv:v:34:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s10460-017-9774-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s10460-017-9774-z
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. William Lacy, 2023. "Local food systems, citizen and public science, empowered communities, and democracy: hopes deserving to live," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 40(1), pages 1-17, March.
    2. Katia A. Figueroa-Rodríguez & María del Carmen Álvarez-Ávila & Fabiola Hernández Castillo & Rita Schwentesius Rindermann & Benjamín Figueroa-Sandoval, 2019. "Farmers’ Market Actors, Dynamics, and Attributes: A Bibliometric Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-15, January.
    3. Alexander Panez & Ilka Roose & Rodrigo Faúndez, 2020. "Agribusiness Facing Its Limits: The Re-Design of Neoliberalization Strategies in the Exporting Agriculture Sector in Chile," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-26, February.

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